REGINA, Sask. — The Regina Floral Conservatory has welcomed one of the world’s rarest trees, bringing a living piece of prehistoric history into the city’s indoor garden.
The young Wollemi pine, or Wollemia nobilis, was officially welcomed Friday after being donated by Edmonton’s Muttart Conservatory, which propagated an additional plant from its own collection. Regina Garden Associates volunteer Myrna Kimmie carefully potted the tree for public display.
For Ron Sharpe, president of the Regina Garden Associates, the significance goes far beyond adding another unusual plant to the collection.
“It’s really amazing because this plant is so rare,” Sharpe said. “They just discovered it in 1994.”
The species belongs to the ancient Araucariaceae family, a lineage that stretches back roughly 200 million years. Fossil evidence places Wollemi pines among the vegetation that existed during the age of dinosaurs, and the species was believed to have disappeared from Earth about two million years ago before a small population was found in Australia in 1994.
David Noble, an Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service field officer, discovered the trees while exploring a remote canyon in Wollemi National Park in New South Wales. The discovery revealed that a species known only from the fossil record was still alive.
Today, the Wollemi pine is classified as critically endangered. Fewer than 100 individuals remain in the wild, with the New South Wales government reporting 46 mature trees and 43 juveniles in 2024. Their isolated habitat leaves the population particularly vulnerable to wildfire and disease.
The trees even survived a direct threat from the catastrophic Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020. Firefighters mounted a highly specialized operation to protect the remaining wild population from the Gospers Mountain fire.
That survival story is now continuing thousands of kilometres away.
Mariana Hinojosa Centella, vice-president of the Regina Garden Associates, said the organization sees the tree as something that will outlive its current surroundings.
“We feel incredibly honoured to have this amazing plant that gets to live up to like 500 years or more,” Hinojosa Centella said.
Wollemi pines can eventually become enormous. In their native environment, they can reach roughly 40 metres in height, while some cultivated specimens are already several metres tall. Some of the oldest living Wollemi pines are thought to be between 500 and 1,000 years old.
That creates an unusual problem for Regina: the tree could eventually outgrow the building that is currently displaying it.
“This plant is destined for the new floral conservatory,” Hinojosa Centella said. “It’s going to outgrow this space. So it definitely needs a new space, a new floral conservatory to have a better suited home for the long term.”
The Regina Garden Associates are pursuing a new 42,000-square-foot conservatory in Wascana Centre, with a projected cost of about $48 million and a target opening around 2030. The group recently presented its plans to Regina city council as it works toward securing support and completing the planning and environmental work required for the project.
Sharpe said the arrival of the Wollemi pine adds another reason to think about what that future facility needs to accommodate.
“And it’ll grow very big when we get our new conservatory,” Sharpe said. “We have to build it really tall so it’ll accommodate it.”
For now, the young tree is beginning its Regina life inside the existing conservatory, where visitors can see it alongside the facility’s permanent collection.
The Regina Floral Conservatory is operated by the volunteer Regina Garden Associates in partnership with the City of Regina. It is open daily from 1 to 4:30 p.m., with Friday hours beginning at noon, and admission is by donation.
Hinojosa Centella sees the tree as more than a rare attraction. To her, it represents a living connection between what has survived for millions of years and what Regina hopes to build next.
“We feel so honoured, so happy to have such a special plant,” she said. “It’s kind of like the building steps toward something as beautiful and big that is coming on the horizon, that is the new floral conservatory.”
A tree once hidden in an Australian canyon, unknown to modern science and presumed extinct, is now growing under glass in Regina.
And if its extraordinary history is any indication, this may be only the beginning of its story here.
